PTO

Pacific Series

The 16mm BattleDice in this series complement some of the key players in the Pacific Theatre of Operations during World War II. For obvious reasons, the Japanese pair is the centrepiece of the series. The white die features a charging Japanese officer with a katana (sword). The kanji, or script, to the right of him translates as “bushido.” Emblazoned on the bright-red die is the battle flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The kanji below the flag means “rising sun.”

The Nationalist Chinese pair also has a design on each ace. All other faces have pips. The white die features the white-sun, blue-sky symbol of Nationalist China in blue foil. The dark-blue die has a stylized dragon and traditional Chinese script in red foil. The white pips, red foil, and dark-blue die mirror the colours on the flag of the Republic of China. Red is also an important colour in Chinese culture, together with the dragon. (Helen insisted that we have a dragon on the die.) The script translates literally as “dare to die,” as in a dare-death, or a suicide squad.

We also made a set of dice for the United States Marine Corps. Although the USMC comprised only a small part of the overall Allied commitment to the war in the Pacific, the Corps stars in numerous ASL scenarios. To date, Multi-Man Publishing has published four historical modules, studies, or mini campaign games for the USMC: Blood Reef Tarawa, Operation Watchtower (Guadalcanal), Hell’s Corner (Guadalcanal), and Suicide Creek (New Britain). The white die shows US Marines and a US Navy corpsman raising the US flag on Iwo Jima on 23 February 1945. We debated adding a date or other text, but thought that the image worked best on its own. The saffron (yellow) die is intended to mimic the official colours of the USMC: scarlet and gold. The design is a simplified version of the USMC globe and anchor. The text reads “Semper Fi.”